Personal Independent Payment

polly1

Registered User
Dec 8, 2011
307
0
Hampshire
My husband aged 61 was diagnosed with Posterior Cortical Atrophy (visual varient of Alzheimer's) in 2011. He has received Disability Living Allowance since 2012 at the lower and middle scale, about £300 per month. His condition has worsened and he has now been registered as sight impaired. I applied to get the higher scale of benefit and had to complete a new 40 page booklet as DLA is being replaced by PIP. We have received a letter today informing us that a health care professional will be calling to see us at the beginning of December. I am feeling really nervous about this. Does anyone have any experience of such a visit and what it entails? Thanks.
 

fizzie

Registered User
Jul 20, 2011
2,725
0
A close friend of mine has recently had a PIP visit. She too was extremely worried. She has told me that the visit was not a problem. The person who visited was an occupational therapist I believe and she just wanted to see how they managed at home with mobility, personal care etc etc all the things that had been asked on the form. It is important to say that days are sometimes much worse than the person will see on one visit and that night timesare bad etc. They can't see everything on one visit and they do need to be told so my friend said it is a good idea to write down the story of your worst day and night and give it to them in all its glory!!!

All that said, she told me it wasn't even 20% as bad as she thought it would be!! If i can find out anymore tomrrow for you then I will xx
 

Alison N

Registered User
Jan 3, 2015
217
0
Surrey
Hello Polly1, my husband also had to have an assessment for PIP but he had to attend the centre. We too were dreading it but it wasn't as bad as we feared. As Fizzie says, think of the worst day and night when you are explaining your problems. I wrote down all the problems we were having before we went in and referred to them because you can never remember them all. They were happy that I referred to my notes. Good luck x
 

LynneMcV

Volunteer Moderator
May 9, 2012
6,116
0
south-east London
Hi, my husband was assessed nearly a year ago (Christmas eve of all days!) They came to the house and it was fine. The lady had the notes from my application form with her and just basically went through them all with my husband. I was allowed to talk too and as the others said, I gave feedback on what the situation was on the worst days.
She quickly saw for herself what the situation was anyway, through her own interactions with my husband. There was no stress caused to my husband and within a couple of weeks (it was Christmas, so maybe in general this would be quicker) we received confirmation that my husband had been put on the higher rate for both parts.
It was much less complicated than I had anticipated. Good luck xx
 

Spamar

Registered User
Oct 5, 2013
7,723
0
Suffolk
I qualify for PIP, formerly DLA, and had to go to see them. As has been said, just imagine worse case scenario, and tell it! I remember I had to lift my foot - walking is a problem - and could only raise it about 1cm! Also asked to spell world backwards, another wry grin! Definitely not scary!
They confirmed I was much worse than when I first got DLA, think it was three weeks before I heard, although you don't get any increase in money for another month ( it's in the small print, I checked) when moving from DLA to PIP.
 

polly1

Registered User
Dec 8, 2011
307
0
Hampshire
Just a quick note to say that said appointment happened on 5/12/15. Nice chap who could see for himself the situation. Just hope we get the higher mobility component now. If the DWP are sending someone out to everyone who is claiming, one wonders how much that is costing.
 

tre

Registered User
Sep 23, 2008
1,352
0
Herts
Polly I have not been to many meetings recently as David has lost much mobility. I am glad it was not too bad for you. I remember how scary it was for me when trying to explain to people how limiting the visual problems are with PCA but we were always the first person they had seen with PCA which considering is rare was to be. Hope it all works out for you both
Tre
 

NanLorac

Registered User
May 14, 2012
686
0
Scotland
In the summer my friend and I were advised not to apply for PIP by Money Matters who helped us fill in the DLA forms before. There were so many in our area that were moved from the mid rate of care to the lower rate on PIP so the carer's were loosing their carer allowance.

I know that we will eventually have to change to PIP. What we were told was that the PIP forms are for people with other disabilities and the questions are not favorable for people with Dementia.
 

polly1

Registered User
Dec 8, 2011
307
0
Hampshire
Oh heck NanLorac, just hope we don't end up with less money. My OH has just been registered partially sighted as he has PCA which throws lots of other disabilities into the mix.
 

NanLorac

Registered User
May 14, 2012
686
0
Scotland
Polly don't worry. I live in Scotland and I don't know if this is a problem in our area.

4 years ago my husband was claiming ESA because he lost his job. 10 days after we were told he had early onset Dementia he had to go for an Atos interview. He was put in a group to get him back to work.:confused: They had not even contact the hospital he attended.:eek:
 

Ashesinthewind

Registered User
May 30, 2015
15
0
"Does anyone know how or where the best place to find out about PIP is?"

See
forum.alzheimers.org.uk/showthread.php?88321-Pip-Help-Please&p=1208548&viewfull=1#post1208548

Thanks. I did do a search on this forum and it brought me here :-o
 

nitram

Registered User
Apr 6, 2011
30,081
0
Bury
"I did do a search on this forum and it brought me here :-o"

Use Google to search forum put

HTML:
personal independent payment site:http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/

in browser.